Can stress make them lay the wrong color egg?

[rugbratmom]

Fancy, my Wyandotte is not happy about the addition of the cage of teenage chicks to the chicken run. She is spending a large portion of her days making alarm sounds similar to the sounds she makes when the neighbor's cat is prowling nearby. She normally lays tan eggs but yesterday's egg was white. Could the stress from the chicks have caused her to lay a white egg? The egg she laid this morning was normal. What else could have caused a white egg? Is there anything I should be watching out for?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Another hen laying perhaps? Egg color is very consistent. It can fade slowly throughout the years cycle but wont have drastic changes.

 

[rugbratmom]

I only have 2 laying hens and both of them are tan egg layers. That's why a white egg was a little shocking to find in the nest.

 

[minichicks05]

It could be the new chickens laying! How old are they?
If they are anywhere from 16-25 weeks it's probably them laying them.

 

[rugbratmom]

It is not the chicks laying. They are caged in a corner of the run where my hens can see them and talk to them but not peck them. I am trying to introduce them slowly. They are too young to lay and cannot get to the nesting box. I am sure that the egg came from my Wyandotte.

 

[minichicks05]

It is almost impossible for a hen to change that much of color on a egg. Sure she might lay lighter but not a different color. Just my opinion

 

[scalyfeets]

It is almost impossible for a hen to change that much of color on a egg. Sure she might lay lighter but not a different color. Just my opinion

Hi all, just wanted to throw my two cents in. I have 4 hens, 3 at 15 months and 1 at 16 months. Beginning of April the 16 month old(EE) went from laying a rich creamy tan egg to laying almost white eggs. In the space of 4 days the color lightened up that much. Also the small end of the egg has little rough, stucco-like warts on it. It cleared up in 10 days and she was good up until now. It's starting to happen again although the egg color is shifting back and forth every two days or so. Yesterday I found an egg the size of a large green olive!? Not sure which one laid it but one of them just finished a broody spell. As far as the color issue goes, I did read online somewhere that a defective shell gland can cause problems.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The egg makes a long journey through the hen’s internal egg making factory. Most of that time is in the shell gland where she is putting the shell on. The last bit is also in the shell gland but she is also putting the brown color on for brown egg layers on top of that shell. If you want you can rub or sandpaper that brown off and you will find a white egg underneath. Or take the membrane out of the inside of the egg shell and see what color the inside of the shell is. For a brown egg, you will see white.

Occasionally a hen has a hick-up in her egg making factory. An occasional hick-up is not a big deal, it’s when it becomes regular it might be worth looking into. Sometimes something happens that causes a hen to lay an egg early, before that brown coating has time to be applied. Sometimes those eggs can be thin-shelled. I guess it’s possible those chicks somehow stressed her but it’s more likely something startled her. For whatever reason if it is just a one-off, don’t stress about it.

Another possible cause is that it is possible for a hen to release a second yolk. If this occurs at the same time the other yolk is released, you might get a double yolked egg. If there is some gap between release, the hen can lay a second egg the same day. The hen usually makes a certain amount of some egg materials like pigment to color the egg or shell material to cover the egg, so the second egg can be shell-less, think-shelled, or very light in color. Again, if it is a rare occurrence, don’t stress about it.

It’s not unusual at all for a pullet just starting to lay to have some very strange eggs. That egg making factory is pretty complex and sometimes it takes a while for a pullet to debug the system. You can get shell-less eggs, thin-shelled eggs, extremely thick shelled eggs, double yolked eggs, eggs with no whites, eggs with no yolks, some really tiny eggs, very light eggs, extremely dark eggs. Most of the time they work out these kinks pretty fast, but with the system as complicated as it is maybe the surprise is how many get it right to start with.

As long as she is not consistently laying a white egg, you do not have a thing to worry about.

 

[scalyfeets]

The egg makes a long journey through the hen’s internal egg making factory. Most of that time is in the shell gland where she is putting the shell on. The last bit is also in the shell gland but she is also putting the brown color on for brown egg layers on top of that shell. If you want you can rub or sandpaper that brown off and you will find a white egg underneath. Or take the membrane out of the inside of the egg shell and see what color the inside of the shell is. For a brown egg, you will see white.

Occasionally a hen has a hick-up in her egg making factory. An occasional hick-up is not a big deal, it’s when it becomes regular it might be worth looking into. Sometimes something happens that causes a hen to lay an egg early, before that brown coating has time to be applied. Sometimes those eggs can be thin-shelled. I guess it’s possible those chicks somehow stressed her but it’s more likely something startled her. For whatever reason if it is just a one-off, don’t stress about it.

Another possible cause is that it is possible for a hen to release a second yolk. If this occurs at the same time the other yolk is released, you might get a double yolked egg. If there is some gap between release, the hen can lay a second egg the same day. The hen usually makes a certain amount of some egg materials like pigment to color the egg or shell material to cover the egg, so the second egg can be shell-less, think-shelled, or very light in color. Again, if it is a rare occurrence, don’t stress about it.

It’s not unusual at all for a pullet just starting to lay to have some very strange eggs. That egg making factory is pretty complex and sometimes it takes a while for a pullet to debug the system. You can get shell-less eggs, thin-shelled eggs, extremely thick shelled eggs, double yolked eggs, eggs with no whites, eggs with no yolks, some really tiny eggs, very light eggs, extremely dark eggs. Most of the time they work out these kinks pretty fast, but with the system as complicated as it is maybe the surprise is how many get it right to start with.

As long as she is not consistently laying a white egg, you do not have a thing to worry about.

Thanks for all the info!! Much appreciated.

 

[Chissett]

Fancy, my Wyandotte is not happy about the addition of the cage of teenage chicks to the chicken run. She is spending a large portion of her days making alarm sounds similar to the sounds she makes when the neighbor's cat is prowling nearby. She normally lays tan eggs but yesterday's egg was white. Could the stress from the chicks have caused her to lay a white egg? The egg she laid this morning was normal. What else could have caused a white egg? Is there anything I should be watching out for?

Sadly (and after no problems for 3 years) a fox managed to get into my outer chicken run and slaughter all my chickens bar one..she managed to fly on top of the coup and survived the traumatic experience...she made 'egg laying/alarm' noises after that in the morning non stop from dawn, and I didn't want to leave her on her own, so I picked up 4 more chickens the next day. 3 of them were already laying I was told, and one, bring a pure breed wouldn't start laying for another couple of months.. But moving can 'shock them' and stop egg laying temporarily. A few days on and I'm trying to work out who's laying what. The leghorn is quite obviously laying the white eggs...the Warren has laid a half soft shelled pale brown egg so far (4 days on) and I've seen the auracana on the nest who is supposed to lay blue/olive eggs. But the only other egg I keep finding is a smaller extremely pale blue/almost white egg, so I can't work out if that belongs to my original legbar cross (the survivor) who used to lay blue eggs (a pale blue but not as pale as this current egg I keep finding) or to the new auracana (who maybe laying a lighter egg because she's just been moved). However this has gone on for 3 or 4 days now, and the (non leghorn) egg is still a small, extremely pale/hardly blue and almost white egg! So I'm convinced egg colour can go paler for a while when chickens have been shocked or stressed. (The previous owner of the auracana sent me a photo of her eggs which are a much darker blue/olive).